Nemechek ready to keep rolling at home before getting back on the road (courses)

The NASCAR Xfinity Series roars into Charlotte Motor Speedway this weekend, and once again John Hunter Nemechek sits atop the point standings, one point ahead of second-ranked Austin Hill.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has put up some great numbers so far, winning at Fontana and Martinsville, taking the pole position at Darlington, and scoring 6 top-five finishes and 9 top 10s.

Already, Nemechek has proven to be a legitimate title contender. But with NASCAR’s playoffs still months away, his only focus right now is to win individual races. Charlotte is only round 12 of 33, after all.

“To be honest, I haven’t even thought about the playoffs at this point,” Nemechek said in an interview with Auto Racing Digest. “It’s definitely a good feeling to be locked in. But at the same time, you want to win every single week you show up at the racetrack. So, for me, it’s a little different mindset.

“When the playoffs get here, we’ll focus on the playoffs. But for now, it’s try and go win as many races as we possibly can and have a great regular season.”

With the focus solely on the next race, Nemechek hopes for another great showing at Charlotte, a track he literally grew up at watching his father, former Cup Series regular Joe Nemechek, compete at.

“Charlotte is a great race track,” Nemechek said. “For Memorial Day weekend, Coke 600 weekend, as a kid growing up at the racetrack - that’s home for me.

“Being able to be close to home and support our troops and have just an amazing environment surrounding the whole weekend has always been incredible. The atmosphere, the energy - there’s so much that goes into that Charlotte weekend. Being able to have friends and family there and go out and try and win the race is a super big deal. It’s bragging rights. It’s the home racetrack for a lot of us drivers.

“It’s definitely one of those racetracks you want to win at. You want to win every time you show up to the racetrack. At times, there's certain racetracks that you circle that you’ve been really good at and you know you’re going to have a shot, and I feel that Charlotte has been one of my better racetracks throughout the years. Who knows what’s going to happen this weekend, but I’m looking forward to getting on track and seeing what we can do.”

After Charlotte, the Xfinity Series heads west for back-to-back road course races at Portland International Raceway and Sonoma Raceway. Nemechek’s lone start at Sonoma came in a truck last year and he’s never raced at Portland at all. Still, he’s excited to turn both left and right soon.

“I have enjoyed road course racing,” Nemechek said. “I haven’t done a ton of it throughout my career, but I do enjoy it. There’s a lot that goes into it, a lot that a driver can control and make time or lose time. I thoroughly enjoy it for that purpose. And it’s something different. It’s not something we do every single weekend. Having a little change up is nice as well.”

Portland will be a massive change from Charlotte. Hosting the Xfinity Series is pretty much the only thing the 12-turn, 1.967-mile road course in Oregon has in common with the 4-turn, 1.5-mile banked oval in North Carolina. But it could be argued that the variety of venues coast-to-coast is what adds to the excitement of the Xfinity Series.

“I’m excited to come out to the Northwest and race at Portland,” Nemechek said. “It’s a brand new racetrack for me so there’s going to be some studying going in. There’s quite a bit of sim time just trying to figure out the track. I know last year’s race was in the rain so there’s a lot of unknowns going into it.

“But I’m definitely excited about the opportunity to go out there. I feel like NASCAR has a pretty big fanbase in the Northwest as well, and Portland seems to be a pretty neat racetrack. It produced some pretty good racing last year in my opinion, but I’m definitely going to need to be a fast learner and try and do everything I can to catch up quickly."

With Charlotte this weekend and the west coast just on the horizon, Nemechek hopes to continue to put up great results. So far, he couldn't be more proud of both himself and his No. 20 team.

“The season has been pretty good for us," Nemechek said. "I feel like we have definitely put ourselves in contention almost every single week to run up front and have shots to win almost every week. As a driver and as a team, that’s all you can ask for. Sometimes the day is worse and sometimes it’s not, but execution has definitely been good this year.”